Delivering school‐based mental health services by school psychologists: Education,training, and ethical issues

Consistent with the priority goals of the 2002 Future of School Psychology Conference, the National Association of School Psychologists' Blueprint for Training and Practice III advocates for school psychologists becoming “leading mental health experts in schools.” In this regard, the present article reviews the prevalence and incidence of children's mental health problems in the schools, followed by a historical overview of the nature of school‐based mental health services. We discuss education and training issues and related ethical and professional practice issues that focus on the ethics codes of the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Psychological Association that are associated with the delivery of mental health services by school psychologists. Recommendations are offered for graduate‐level coursework and field experiences in the delivery of school‐based mental health services, as well as future directions for research in this area. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Travelling home(s): contemporary Korean art after the postcolonial

Contemporary discussions of globalisation (in general) and postcolonialism (more specifically) have largely remained wed to critiques of the West, including around its outsized role in the proliferation of neoliberal economic logics. As Chen argues in Asia as Method, these discussions have precluded other kinds of discussions about globalisation and its ‘theories’ – those that are generated between Asian countries and peoples (recognising that ‘Asia’ itself is a construction). In this essay, we look towards a different kind of conversation about the postcolonialism, one that does not take the West as its primary interlocutor. We will look closely at two South Korean contemporary artists – Do Ho Suh (1962–) and Kimsooja (1957–) – and see how they work through contemporary, material concerns around ‘home’ and ‘place’. In particular, these artists point us towards ‘movement’ as a trope for displacing extant concerns with fixed identity and as a kind of ontological state of being in the world.     

Using iPads to Facilitate Library Instruction Sessions in a SCALE-UP Classroom

This study details a trial in which three undergraduate library instruction sessions were conducted on a class set of iPads in a SCALE-UP classroom. The iPads suggested strong potential as replacements for desktop computers and demonstrated support for key active learning approaches: instant polling, content sharing, and navigation of Webpages and databases. The SCALE-UP classroom has made notable contributions in promoting undergraduate learning, and its advantages were found to be applicable to library instruction. The pedagogy that the space is designed to reinforce, collaborative learning segments interspersed with lecture components, seemed to promote student engagement in library instruction sessions.     

Problems and prospects of applied research: The development of an adolescent smoking prevention program

This paper argues that applied research has the potential for making important theoretical contributions if efforts are made to explore and overcome inadequacies in existing social scientific theories by integrating, refining, and expanding these theories to achieve the necessary scope to solve the problem at hand. Ways in which these ends might be achieved are suggested through discussion of the procedures employed and the problems encountered in the development and assessment of Iowa's Program Against Smoking (I‐PAS), a theoretically‐based program to reduce adolescents' tobacco use.     

Predicting SNAP Participation in Older Adults: Do Age Categorizations Matter?

Prior, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) research reveals limited age cohort analyses that may not accurately reflect nuanced age differences in SNAP participation. The purpose of this study was to add depth to older age analysis and SNAP participation via four models of age categorizations. This secondary data analysis used a sample of 10,116 older adults from the 2010 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and physical factors, logistic regression tested four age categorization models: Third-Age and Fourth-Age groupings; young-old, middle-old, and oldest old groupings; generic decade cohorts; and continuous age. Hypotheses for each model predicted older age as negative to SNAP participation. Significant predictors of SNAP participation included female gender; non-White, non-Hispanic, and Hispanic ethnicities; lower household income; inadequate food budget; and difficulty in self-dressing. Odds ratios confirmed age as a negative factor to SNAP participation. Addition of age categorizations into each model yielded nominal effect size change. Yet, addition of age into the models changed the relationship between control variables and SNAP receipt: gender and Hispanic ethnicity. While age categorizations offered marginal effect predicting SNAP participation, difficulty dressing most strongly predicted increased participation across all models. This finding is relevant, as standard SNAP participation models for younger individuals rely heavily on socioeconomic indicators. Results suggest future research modeling SNAP participation in older individuals that emphasizes physical/medical issues.     

University leaders and university performance in the United Kingdom: is it ‘who’ leads, or ‘where’ they lead that matters most?

With key performance indicators (KPIs) part of everyday life in the higher education (HE) sector, universities have become increasingly concerned with league tables and performance indicator-led strategy and planning. The choice an institution makes concerning the KPIs it wishes to be evaluated on depends on its mission and objectives, with a Head of Institution (VC) appointed to deliver against this. As such, this raises the question as to whether institutional performance can be related in any way to the characteristics of its leader. The purpose of this research, therefore, was to identify any empirical justification for the socio-demographic characteristics which those responsible for searching and appointing VCs appear to have favoured over the past 10 years. Also, whether these can be shown to be related to the performance of their institutions. Using data available in the public domain and for UK (excluding Scotland) VCs in service for, at least, some time during 1999–2004 inclusive, evidence for the importance of VC characteristics for institutional performance was limited. Indeed, our findings suggest that, whilst the performance of a university may be ‘moulded’ by the characteristics of its’ leader, most of the variability is explained by non-leadership factors. We also found highly significant correlations amongst the KPIs used in HE, which has very significant implications for those wishing to differentiate themselves from other institutions.     

Assessing students’ understanding about levers: better test instruments are not enough

This study was designed to investigate variations in students’ responses to lever problems across multiple assessment contexts and formats. Prior to and at the end of a four‐month science unit on simple machines, grade 6/7 students prepared semantic maps, wrote responses to application questions, discussed their written answers, and modelled solutions to practical problems using physical materials. We present data from pre‐ and post‐instruction interviews to show that students’ responses varied in kind and extent across assessment contexts and formats. Such variations in performance are consistent with situated cognition theories which assert that competence is heterogeneous across situations and is a function of interactions between individuals and the contexts in which they perform. Based on these findings, implications are drawn regarding more productive means of assessing students’ understanding in classrooms.